Purpose: Several studies have demonstrated that dynamic assessment can be a less biased, valid approach for the identification of language disorder among diverse school-age children. However, all prior studies have included a relatively small number of participants, which is generally not adequate for psychometric research. This is the first…

The Brigance Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills-II (CIBS-II) is the newest version of a long-standing instrument that is useful for identifying student achievement, identifying and monitoring academic strengths and weaknesses, obtaining data to support referrals, and reporting progress for individual educational plans. Since the CIBS-II is…

By the end of the kindergarten, students are expected to possess early academic skills as well as the social maturity to be successful in first grade. Students leaving kindergarten without these readiness skills are sometimes held back in first grade or referred for a special education evaluation in later grades if they fail to make adequate…

This technical report provides an overview of the New York State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA), including a description of the purpose of the NYSAA, the processes utilized to develop and implement the NYSAA program, and Stakeholder involvement in those processes. The purpose of this report is to document the technical aspects of the 2013-14 NYSAA.…

The National Study on Alternate Assessments (NSAA) was mandated by the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA). Specifically, the law called for a "Study on Ensuring Accountability for Students Who Are Held to Alternative Achievement Standards" to examine: (1) the criteria that states use to determine…

This study addresses three questions: First, considering the full group of students and the special education subgroup, what is the likely effect of minimum cell size and confidence interval size on school-level Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) determinations? Second, what effects do the changing minimum cell sizes have on inclusion of special…

This technical report documents the procedures followed in developing student and teacher surveys to gather information about the accommodations students are accustomed to receiving and those that might be beneficial on a mathematics test delivered on the computer. It provides documentation of the technical adequacy of the survey instruments, as…